After our recent attendance at MPLD March 2010 at Centurion, Ive come to realize alot. Read on...

We took part in the counter-strike:source tournament at MPLD in the beginning of March, the first CS:S competition my team had entered since the new formation. One thing I can say is that I was very surprised with a certain aspect of the game. Let me explain.

Two weeks prior to the event, our team had been practicing hard, very hard. Our main focus and goal was on the practice of teamwork within the team. This meant, breaching, flashing, co-ordination, communication, and anything related to the team style of the game. We formulated strategies and game plays and felt really ready for the event.

We walked into the event very confident about our teams chemistry.
Everything began well, until... we came up against a team called "c7e". As a lot of source players know c7e have never won any major competitions. Every time I logged onto a Free For All (FFA) server, I would always see at LEAST one of the c7e members playing on that server.

Anyhow, we came up against c7e after winning our first game, to loose to them 16-14. After the game I went for a lunch with the team and we recapped over the strategy and our maps, everything seemed to be fine. There were no holes, no gaps. What went wrong?

As the day progressed we worked our way up the ladder from the losers bracket towards the grand final after beating teams such as Soviet, Vigour, 501.

Once in the grand final, we believed that we would take them on both maps to finish the comp in a great comeback. We did not. C7e beat us on the first map (de_inferno) to win the competition.

This is where my point comes up. What went wrong ?
After much thought and recap, I had come to the conclusion that we were blindsided in our practice.
We aimed at creating such insane co-ordination and communication that we actually forgot about the individual game. We forgot about our individual practice and concentrated on all the outer aspects, leaving the actual individual game behind.

After coming to this conclusion, I have realized something. Counter-strike source and Counter-strike 1.6 are two different games. Counter-strike 1.6 requires much more strategic concept, as a whole, from the top (And i think this is where our theory came with our Source practice) where Counter-strike source does to, but in a different way. In a way that it doesn't require as much overview thinking but more on-the-go. Where the individual needs to know the game in and out, the angles, the individual flashing, the movement. c7e were ready, their players knew the angles, the movement, the spots. Their individual concept was there.

I think our biggest problem preparing for the competition was what I have just explained. We concentrated more on the team dynamics (co-ordination, communication), than the individual dynamics (angles, shooting, moving).

After all, it has been a while since BVD competed in Source
I hope I have pointed out a basic difference when switching from 1.6 to Source.

Peace out and see ya at the next comp
-cent